


Don't Stop

by SegaBarrett



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:58:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex saves Norma who saves Alex who... they don't even know anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Stop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perdiccas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perdiccas/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Bates Motel, and I make no money from this. 
> 
> A/N: Named for the Fleetwood Mac song :)
> 
> Warning: Mention of a torture scene from a James Bond book, and some Caleb mentions.

Norma sucked in a breath so deep she thought her rib cage would start disintegrating. She could picture it, even – like a ball caught in nitrogen and dropped so that it cracked; she’d seen that in a show once. 

She tried to think back and justify the fact that she was prostrate against a ceiling board peeping in on someone’s living room – or what she assumed was the living room given that it was a cabin – but it had all happened so fast. This bearded guy – Chick, was apparently his name – had been creeping around her motel recently, trying to get a glimpse of all of them. He was obviously up to no good.

Dylan had told her not to get involved, that he’d handle it. She was tired of hearing that from people – Romero would handle it, Dylan would handle it. She was the one who always ended up handling it, one way or another, either dealing with people running her off the road to get a damn flash drive or a dead body appearing in her bed over money she’d never seen.

So she’d have to forgive herself if she’d acted a bit… impulsively. Dylan was keeping her out of the loop on this whole situation, after all – he’d only mention that this guy was a neighbor of theirs up on the farm and that he’d gotten into it with Caleb.

There was a shock. She’d never known her brother to play well with others.

She had caught a glimpse of the van that had been parked outside the hotel for three days straight, and she’d followed it not far behind. It was hard to be below the radar in a Mercedes, so she’d borrowed Emma’s little car and hoped for the best. 

Then she’d waited for him to slip away and she’d broken into the house. That was about as far as her plan currently went. Now, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to get out again, nor was she sure how long it would be before Chick left again.

Silently, she cursed Caleb for being the cause of all this trouble. Why had he needed to come back again, insert himself back into all of their lives? She was cleaning up his mess all over again, just like she’d had to when he’d been a kid and screwed everything up at home. She’d always been the one to try and save him from getting punished, and a lot of help that was to her.

Chick was busy sitting at a table. It was hard to tell exactly what he was up to; he had a large rifle laid out across the table and was looking down closely at some sort of inner workings of it. Norma had never understood the appeal of gun collecting – it made sense to help keep yourself safe, but who wanted that many guns? It was like stamp collecting but took up more space, not to mention in the news in Arizona there were always stories about punk kids breaking into people’s houses and making off with people’s guns. Who wanted that responsibility hanging over their heads?

Apparently Chick didn’t care much. Then again, people in general didn’t seem to be Chick’s thing – he lived this far out in the middle of nowhere, didn’t he? 

Why couldn’t he just go back to being a hermit? Norma almost pounded the ceiling in frustration. She didn’t want to have to be out here, spying on him. She’d rather be back home reading a book or watching TV and sipping a chai latte. Or, usually, spending time with Norman.

Not recently, however. Recently, her son made her want to pull out her hair. She couldn’t stand his mood swings that made her wonder which way was up anymore. She almost wished she’d followed through and made him go live at Pine View. Then at least she could get some peace, could close her eyes without wondering what kind of trouble Norman was going to get into, or worse… whether he would leap upon her one day the way he had with…

But no, she had nothing in common with that woman. Nothing at all.

Without realizing it, Norma raised her hand to gesture her approval of her own thought, or maybe her hand was just going numb and she couldn’t stand it. 

The ceiling rattled.

“Oh shit,” Norma whispered, sucking in a breath. 

“Is someone up there?” Chick’s voice floated up in an almost sing-songy type of way. Norma clenched her nails into her palm so hard she could feel the blood, could smell it. She remembered being in high school and sneaking peeks at a James Bond book under the tables, one where Bond and his female companion were trapped in a vent and the bad guy had shot steam up through it. They’d needed to stay quiet ever with their skin burning off.

Norma had always thought that seemed impossible.

She bit her lip hard, tried to hold her breath.

“It sounds like something’s up there. Or someone.”

Chick was holding up his gun, now. She had to think quick. 

“I’m going to shoot.” His voice was far too calm for the things he was saying. She started to curse Caleb a hundred times in her head for stirring this up. Her idiot brother was going to get her killed.

There was something vibrating against her leg, and Norma had the thought that it was a bullet, only in slow motion. Maybe this was the way she died, slowly, happening frame by frame with pixels coming up little by little. Maybe that was a prettier way, a less painful way, something that would transfix her in her final moments.

But Norman…

That snapped her out of the macabre thought process long enough to realize that the thing vibrating was her phone in her pocket. She scrambled for it, stared at the name on the screen.

Alex.

Just who she needed right about now. An answer to her prayers.

She pressed the “answer” button and pressed it to her ear. 

“Alex!” she whispered in a hiss. “Listen, please don’t ask. I’m at this cabin in the woods near where Dylan lives. I’m in a roof. Please come get me.”

“Norma, why are you in a roof?”

“I said not to ask,” she whispered back. “Just come get me. It’s Chick Hogan’s house. Hurry!” She slammed the phone down, not sure it was really going to do any good since the man obviously knew she was there. Hopefully Alex knew where this place was. Until then, she was on her own.

She curled up in a sort of protective ball and starting breathing deeply. 

“Oh God, oh God,” she whispered. She was interrupted by the sound of something tapping against the ceiling. She could picture it; it was the butt of a rifle. She was doomed. This was her last day, again. She wouldn’t even get until midnight to prepare for it this time. And what would she leave Norman with this time? What had their last conversation been? It had been a stupid argument. A stupid fight about…

“Hands up, put the gun down!”

It was Alex’s low baritone, and Norma wanted to shriek out in thanks. 

When she’d been growing up and reading about princes coming to save the princess in the tower, she’d never assumed it would be a rogue sheriff and a drop ceiling in a nasty cabin, but close enough as far as she was concerned. 

She peeked through the slot and could see the top of Alex’s head.

“Do we have a problem here, Sheriff?”

She couldn’t see what Chick was doing now. He’d moved out of view and that was making her very nervous. He seemed like the kind of man to have tricks up his sleeve, possibly deadly ones. 

“I got a call that you were holding someone hostage here.”

“Ain’t nobody here but us turtles.”

She could feel rather than see Alex’s glare.

“You know, that phrase never made much sense to me,” he replied. “Let’s put the gun down and talk, so I don’t have to do something I might regret.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” Chick’s voice was calm. Too calm, like a man who had killed before and didn’t mind killing again. Maybe Alex didn’t know what he was up against.

Norma pulled back the slat and before thinking about it, jumped down. When her feet collided with the wood floor, she was sure she heard something snap, but she was standing upright and looking right into the bearded man’s eyes, so that had to count for something.

“Norma!” Romero exclaimed.

“Oh, look, it’s the mouse in my little house…” Chick mused, turning towards Norma now, gun in hand. She reached out and grabbed the barrel, trying to force it away from her, both her and Romero. In her mind, she kept hearing the thing go off, seeing the destruction, picturing bomb craters and blood everywhere.

“Alex!” Norma yelled. She could feel her hands callousing, bruising as she gripped the rifle with all her might. 

“Put the gun down Mr. Hogan!” Romero said again, and out of the corner of her eye, Norma could see him raising his own weapon. “Norma, get out of the way!”

She sucked in a breath. How could she get out of the way though? Wouldn’t it be an even match if she let go? But if only Romero was armed… 

Norma yanked on the rifle with the kind of energy she’d previously only read about, the kind of stuff that happens when women lift cars off of their children. The force with which it flew out of Chick’s hands sent her reeling into the wall. With only a short pause to stare at what had just happened, Chick took off running. Romero raised his weapon and fired off a shot, but the man dodged it and ran out the door. Romero seemed conflicted as he stared at the open cabin door for a moment before opting to come towards Norma.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Your bad guy’s getting away,” Norma murmured from her place on the floor. She gathered up her dress and stood, wiping off some lint and brushing some cobwebs off her face. “Thanks for saving me.”

“Same to you.”

***

“Why were you hiding in his roof to begin with? You promised you would tell me later.”

Norma blushed and pushed a piece of her hair back behind her ear.

“Well… Okay, it seems a little stupid now, to look back on it. But I wanted to figure out what he wanted. What he had on us and why he kept following us around – apparently he had some dealings with my son and my brother.”

They were sitting on the couch in the lobby, a little too close for Norma’s comfort. If she moved her leg just a little to the side, she’d brush his – and then what would that start off, she wondered. Would it start something she couldn’t finish?

“Are you okay?” Romero asked.

“I could ask you the same question,” Norma said with a smile. “You came in all guns blazing.”

“Why did you even go there in the first place? Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Because I’m not a damsel in distress, Alex.”

“You’re something, though. Why did you…”

Norma had always hated those movies where men kissed women to shut them up, but right now it was all she could think of; the music that would play in the background and the camera that would zoom in on them as the rest of the world faded away.

She reached out and put her hands on his shoulders, pulled Alex Romero to her, and let her lips meet his. He was stubbly and sweaty and frankly more than a little gross, but there was something familiar in it. In the taste of him.

Norma ran a hand down his side and grasped at his pants. This was a thing she’d been thinking about for a while, if she let herself admit it. But could she do it? Or would something stop her again? Would cooler minds prevail… wasn’t this a mistake? Wasn’t giving herself to someone somehow always a mistake?

They broke the kiss a moment, and she heard him whisper, “Norma.”

“Let’s do this,” she told him. “Let’s… We should go upstairs.” So no one sees, she thought. _But this time… maybe it’s not so bad. This time it’s normal._ But it was hard not to think of irons and secret rendezvous and blackmailers and therapists who need something to convince them to keep their mouth shut. 

She took his hand and led him up the stairs, back into her room and shut the door. Her heart was pounding, like she’d just taken away her own escape route.

“Do you want to?” she asked him. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Norma… do you?” He put his hand on her chest. “It’s pounding… Your heart I mean.”

“I’m just nervous… Let’s go lie down, okay?”

“Norma, wait.” Romero took her hand in his again, firmly. “We don’t need to rush into anything, okay? I’m not that kind of person. Let’s just do this slow.”

She took another quivering breath.

“Slow,” she whispered. Slow wasn’t something she really knew how to do, but she figured it was worth a shot. She sat on the bed. “How does slow start off?”

“Well… what we were doing a little while ago sounds like a good start,” Romero replied. He leaned in and placed a gentle kiss to her neck. She shivered again, but this time it wasn’t out of nervousness. This time there was a tingling she couldn’t deny.

Norma shut her eyes and, as the kiss deepened, she reached back to unhook her bra, then put her hands on his shoulders.

“I… Alex. Let’s,” she said, and this time it wasn’t a nervous request. This time it was something she needed. She needed to forget, needed to know that there was something good in this world and that she could have it, if only for a little while.

She didn’t wait for his response before she turned around and gestured for him to unzip her dress. When she turned back around, it was as if her body was reflecting in his eyes. She felt better about how she looked than she had in years.

He was all heat, all tan skin and calloused fingers and warmth radiating when he was finally as naked as her and positioned above her. Their eyes locked and she knew. She nodded. There were no strings attached this time, at least not for now. Now wasn’t the time to think about what might happen when things got complicated and messy and terrifying. When they had to figure out all the moving parts.

He grabbed her shoulders and then he was inside, and she could only focus on the sweet song ringing in her ear, like birds were singing somewhere in the distance. 

Their lips met, too, and it was like she was whispering something to him, some message that couldn’t be transcribed because it didn’t have any words.

He was thrusting, and she was meeting him, and then the world was exploding. Chaos was flooding the air and for now, she didn’t have to put it back together. She could just sit back and watch the starburst and think about a second in which everything seemed to be going right.


End file.
